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      How GKids Became the A24 of Animation

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      The small distributor has outsize influence because it handles Studio Ghibli films in the United States. Its titles have earned 13 Oscar nods.When the Irish animated film “The Secret of Kells” received a surprise Oscar nomination in 2010, GKids, the boutique distribution company that mounted a stealthy but mighty grass roots campaign on its behalf, had been around for only a little over a year.Back then, the company’s entire operation consisted of two full-time employees and one part-timer. But this year, Hayao Miyazaki’s “The Boy and the Heron” became GKids’s 13th release in their 15-year history to receive a nomination from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for best animated feature. The hand-drawn movie has a real shot at winning and becoming the first GKids release to do so.How has a small outfit focused on animation managed to have such an outsized effect in Hollywood?Eric Beckman, a former music industry executive, founded GKids with the intent of redefining American audiences’ perception of animation as more than a children’s medium. At the time, family-friendly, computer-generated and stylistically similar studio productions had an even tighter stronghold on animation in the United States than they do today.GKids has since filled a precious gap by consistently releasing bold animated work from around the world. For more than a decade now, it has also been entrusted with the North American distribution of titles in the catalog of the revered Japanese animation house Studio Ghibli, maker of “The Boy and the Heron.”Beckman started in animation in a roundabout way. He co-founded the New York International Children’s Film Festival in 1997 with Emily Shapiro, his wife at the time. While the festival was not strictly an animation showcase, it allowed Beckman to develop meaningful relationships with numerous animation companies, including Studio Ghibli.“The Secret of Kells” landed a surprise Oscar nomination in 2010 thanks to a stealthy GKids campaign.GKidsWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Robert Downey Jr. and Christopher Nolan on ‘Oppenheimer.’

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      Christopher Nolan and Robert Downey Jr. have each worked on some of the most lucrative and beloved superhero films of our time, many of them with enormous star-filled casts, so how is it that the two had never worked together on a movie before now, superhero or otherwise?Their paths crossed, sort of, on “Batman Begins” (more on that later). But it took a different kind of summer blockbuster, a three-hour biopic about the triumphs and travails of a theoretical physicist working in New Mexico in the 1940s, to finally bring them together.Since its release in July, “Oppenheimer” has amassed nearly $1 billion in worldwide ticket sales, earned critical raves and been nominated for scores of awards, including 13 Oscars. Among those nominations are three for Nolan, 53, for best picture, best director and best adapted screenplay, and a best supporting actor one for Downey, 58, for his performance as Lewis Strauss, the title character’s Salieri-like nemesis. The nominations are hardly their first — counting “Oppenheimer,” Downey has received three, Nolan, eight — but neither has ever won before and now they’re both considered front-runners.The day after the Oscar nominations were announced, the two got together on the Universal studio lot to talk about how they first met, what winning an Oscar would mean to them, and why so many people didn’t notice that that balding, sweaty guy who had it in for Oppenheimer was actually Robert Downey Jr.These are edited excerpts from our conversation.Nolan working with Downey on “Oppenheimer.”Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal PicturesThis is your first time working together. How did you two meet?ROBERT DOWNEY JR. Here’s what I never got to ask you. We met in a lobby somewhere. You were casting, was it “Batman Begins” or “The Dark Knight”?We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Christopher Nolan Wins DGA Award

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      After four losses, this is the first guild victory for the “Oppenheimer” director. Winners there have won the Academy Award 18 of the last 20 times.The Directors Guild of America on Saturday night handed its top prize for feature-film directing to Christopher Nolan for his hit biopic, “Oppenheimer,” starring Cillian Murphy as the physicist who helped design the atomic bomb. This is the latest major trophy Nolan’s film has won, after taking top honors from the Golden Globes and Critics Choice Awards last month.“The idea that my peers would think that I deserve this means everything to me,” the 53-year-old director said in his acceptance speech.Though this is Nolan’s first DGA win, he is a favorite of the guild and has received four other nominations that stretch back to his 2001 breakthrough, “Memento.” This year he was up against the filmmakers Greta Gerwig (“Barbie”), Yorgos Lanthimos (“Poor Things”), Alexander Payne (“The Holdovers”) and Martin Scorsese, whose nod for “Killers of the Flower Moon” — his 11th from this group — made him the guild’s second-most-nominated filmmaker after Steven Spielberg.Nolan is widely considered the front-runner for the best director Oscar, a bid that was only strengthened by his victory here, since the DGA winner has gone on to take home the Oscar 18 of the last 20 times. At the Academy Awards next month, he’ll once again face off against Scorsese and Lanthimos, though Oscars voters swapped Gerwig and Payne for Justine Triet (“Anatomy of a Fall”) and Jonathan Glazer (“The Zone of Interest”).Judd Apatow, who hosted the DGA Awards, alluded to Gerwig’s headline-making Oscar snub in a joke about how things could have been worse: “I’ve never even been mentioned in an article about the people who got snubbed!” he said.The DGA prize for the best first-time director went to Celine Song, whose romantic drama, “Past Lives,” was nominated for best picture at the Oscars. This award has gone to a female filmmaker three years in a row, a first for this organization, with Song following in the footsteps of Charlotte Wells (“Aftersun”) and Maggie Gyllenhaal (“The Lost Daughter”).“The best way I can honor this incredible recognition for my very first film is to promise that I’ll keep directing films as best as I can for as long as I can,” Song said. “I’m going to keep going. Thank you so much!”Here are the top winners. For the complete list, including reality shows and children’s programming, go to dga.org.FilmFeatureChristopher Nolan, “Oppenheimer”Read an interview with the director.First-Time FeatureCeline Song, “Past Lives”Read our review.DocumentaryMstyslav Chernov, “20 Days in Mariupol”Read our review.TelevisionDrama Series“The Last of Us,” Peter Hoar (for the episode “Long, Long Time”)Comedy Series“The Bear,” Christopher Storer (“Fishes”)Television Movies and Limited Series“Lessons in Chemistry,” Sarah Adina Smith (“Her and Him”) More

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      Academy Awards Announces New Oscar for Achievement in Casting

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      After decades of lobbying from the casting field, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is adding its first new award category since 2001.The Academy Awards is introducing an Oscar for casting, the ceremony’s governing organization announced Thursday, making it the first new category in more than 20 years.Casting directors have been pushing for the category for decades, arguing that their work is critical to the success of a film, but the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which puts on the Oscars, has rejected the idea — until now.The new category will be introduced for films released in 2025, meaning that fans won’t see a statuette given out until 2026. The Academy tends to be conservative when it comes to introducing new awards: The last category to be created was the Oscar for best animated feature film, which was established in 2001. (It went to “Shrek.”) In 2018, the Academy scrapped the introduction of a new category for achievement in “popular” films after blowback from the public and some Academy members.Destiny Lilly, the president of the Casting Society of America, a professional organization for people in the field, said the society was created in the early 1980s in part to help push for this award.“It feels like a long time coming,” said Lilly, who was the casting director for “The Color Purple,” which scored a supporting actress nomination for Danielle Brooks at the upcoming ceremony.The Academy created a branch for casting directors in 2013, which currently includes more than 150 members. Lilly said the new branch allowed for other Academy members to fully understand the extent of what casting directors do.“It was an education process, a building of understanding of what our contributions are as casting directors to a finished film,” Lilly said.The award show’s recognition of off-camera, sometimes overlooked categories was the subject of consternation two years ago when the Academy presented eight categories — including film editing, makeup and hairstyling, and production design — before the live telecast. The decision was met with a wave of criticism asserting that the move communicated that the Academy valued some moviemaking jobs more than others. The next year, the Academy’s new leaders reversed course and gave out all of the awards live.In a joint statement making the announcement, Bill Kramer, the Academy’s chief executive, and Janet Yang, the Academy’s president, said, “Casting directors play an essential role in filmmaking, and as the Academy evolves, we are proud to add casting to the disciplines that we recognize and celebrate.”The Academy’s board of governors voted to add the category on Wednesday.A common argument against a casting award has been the length of the ceremony: Last year, the show ran three and a half hours, and in 2002, it hit the four hour and 23-minute mark.The move puts the Oscars in line with some other awards shows, including the Emmys. The BAFTAs added the category for its 2020 ceremony, helping to fuel calls for the Academy Awards to do the same. More

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      Da’Vine Joy Randolph: Major Prizes, Major Attention, Major Unease

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      The “Holdovers” star Da’Vine Joy Randolph has had a charmed run through awards season so far: Considered the favorite for the supporting actress Oscar, she has already taken the Golden Globe, Critics Choice Award and prestigious trophies from both the New York Film Critics Circle and Los Angeles Film Critics Association.The 37-year-old actress is well-aware of the power of those prizes, and knows that even being in the Oscar conversation can change the course of a career. But does that mean her awards season has been easy to navigate?“It’s overwhelming, if I’m being really honest,” Randolph told me in a candid conversation last week. “You really do earn your stripes going through this awards-season thing.”A monthslong Oscar campaign can be more arduous than people realize: a pileup of Q. and A.s, wardrobe fittings, round tables, photo shoots, interviews, red carpets, ceremonies, movie premieres, cocktail parties and festival appearances that demand always-on levels of poise and adrenaline. Everyone you meet at these events wants something from you — a conversation, a selfie, an autograph, an acceptance speech — and at the end of these glitzy and exhausting nights, there’s not much left over for yourself.Randolph is no novice: Tony-nominated for her role in “Ghost the Musical” (2012), she earned Oscar chatter for her breakout film performance in “Dolemite Is His Name” (2019) and has worked steadily in films like “The United States vs. Billie Holiday” (2021) and TV shows including “Only Murders in the Building,” “The Idol” and “High Fidelity.” Still, nothing she has experienced so far compares to the white-hot awards spotlight shone on her in the wake of “The Holdovers,” and Randolph is still figuring out how to adjust to its glare.Clockwise from top left, Randolph in “Ghost the Musical”; “The United States vs. Billie Holiday,” with Andra Day; “The Holdovers,” opposite Paul Giamatti and Dominic Sessa; and “Dolemite Is His Name,” starring Eddie Murphy.Clockwise from top left: Sara Krulwich/The New York Times; Takashi Seida/Paramount Pictures and Hulu; Seacia Pavao/Focus Features; François Duhamel/NetflixWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Young Filmmaker Lives His ‘Fairy Tale’ at Sundance

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      “I feel like I’m in a fairy tale,” Sean Wang said to the sold-out crowd gathered at the Ray Theater in Park City, Utah, last month for his Sundance Film Festival debut.Mr. Wang, a 29-year-old filmmaker, was dressed in a black suit and white Vans (a nod to his skateboarding roots). He grabbed his chest in a show of how fast his heart was beating as he introduced his film, “Didi.” It is a coming-of-age story about an angsty, insecure 13-year-old Taiwanese American boy trying to find his place in the world.“I’m just going to take a few seconds to take this all in,” he said before snapping a photograph of the audience. The warm crowd included Mr. Wang’s family and friends, the film’s cast and crew, and a handful of potential buyers who have the power to transform his station in life from aspiring filmmaker to bona fide Hollywood director.It has happened before. Luminaries like Steven Soderbergh, Quentin Tarantino, Damien Chazelle, Ava DuVernay and Lulu Wang all went from hopeful dreamers to actual filmmakers in part thanks to the Sundance Film Festival, which just concluded its 40th year.Mr. Wang made a series of short films while working on and off for Google Creative Labs.Mr. Wang has mined aspects of his childhood in much of his work.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Which Sundance 2024 Movies Will Make It to Next Year’s Oscars?

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      A Jesse Eisenberg-Kieran Culkin film, along with performances by Saoirse Ronan and André Holland, may be on the ballot next year.We’ve only just gotten this year’s Oscar nominations, but is it already time to begin looking ahead to next season?I can sense you bristling, and I understand. “Kyle, no,” you’ve just muttered, because we’re on a first-name basis now and you’re still mired in dinner-party discourse over whether the snub of Greta Gerwig in the best-director race is an extinction-level event.I hear your concerns, and I share them. But even as we continue to sift through the wreckage and tea leaves following this season’s Oscar nominations, I’ve just come back from snowy Park City, Utah, where the 40th edition of the Sundance Film Festival debuted a full slate of new movies that could give shape to next year’s awards race. Make no mistake, trophy-related considerations can affect these films’ fortunes even at this early date: I’ve already heard that one terrific Sundance indie has had trouble selling because of concerns that its lead would be unavailable for a full-blown press tour next awards season.Could any of these films follow best-picture nominee “Past Lives,” which premiered at Sundance last January, or even “CODA” (2021), the first Sundance movie to win the top Oscar?The likeliest film to factor into next year’s race is “A Real Pain,” a dramedy starring Jesse Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin as mismatched cousins who embark on a road trip through Poland to better understand the personal history of their late grandmother, a Holocaust survivor. Eisenberg, who also wrote and directed the film, plays the by-the-book cousin and generously hands the flashy, sure-to-be-nominated role to Culkin: His cousin is a charismatic hot mess, and the Emmy-winning “Succession” actor zigs and zags through every scene like a freewheeling live wire.Searchlight bought “A Real Pain” for $10 million, and I could see it making a deep run into awards season. Pronounced a “knockout” by our critic Manohla Dargis, it’s the kind of thematically resonant, culturally specific comedy that voters often respond to. Most of all, I think movie folks will be eager to welcome Culkin into their club: They were just as obsessed with “Succession” as their TV brethren, and it’s finally their turn to shower the 41-year-old with awards attention.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      5 Podcasts for Hollywood’s Awards Season

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      As Oscars night approaches, these shows offer expert analysis and predictions, insight into behind-the-scenes machinations and reflections on front-runners of the past.The 2024 awards season has felt unusually hectic so far, thanks to the strike-delayed Emmy Awards shifting from their usual fall airdate to January. To help make sense of it all — and unpack the discombobulated state of Hollywood now — these five podcasts offer a mixture of expert analysis and predictions for the major ceremonies, original reporting on the industry trends and behind-the-scenes machinations that influence voting, and reflections on Oscar front-runners of the past that probably shouldn’t have been.‘Little Gold Men’This Vanity Fair series debuted in 2015, which means it’s been on hand to chronicle some of the weirdest moments in Academy history, like the 2017 Best Picture flub (when “La La Land” was mistakenly announced as the winner instead of “Moonlight”), 2021’s muted Covid-era ceremony held in a cavernous Los Angeles train station, and the slap heard around the world in 2022. But even when there’s nothing quite so unusual going on, the analysis here always makes awards season more interesting. Hosted by the Vanity Fair journalists Michael Hogan, Katey Rich, Richard Lawson and Joanna Robinson, the conversation is always exhaustive and packed with expertise, exploring not just the contenders for Hollywood’s top prizes, but also the campaigning and strategizing that shape the race. Since many Oscar journeys begin at film festivals such as Sundance, Cannes, Venice and Toronto, there’s no shortage of news and releases to cover year round, not to mention interviews; recent guests have included Andrew Scott (“All of Us Strangers”), Emma Stone (“Poor Things”) and Greta Lee (“Past Lives”).Starter episode: “Oscar Voters, Start Your Engines”‘This Had Oscar Buzz’There’s a peculiar category of film that debuts with great fanfare, attracts plenty of awards buzz, and then fades from the cultural consciousness without a trace (and no awards). Not all of the films discussed on “This Had Oscar Buzz” fall into that bracket, but, as the title suggests, the focus is on the movies that had that buzzy aura around them, at least for a while. An early episode about “Cake,” a 2014 movie starring Jennifer Aniston as a woman living with chronic pain, exemplifies what works so well about this format — Aniston was lauded for her playing-against-type performance and campaigned intensely during that awards season, but was famously snubbed on Oscar nomination morning. The hosts, Joe Reid and Chris Feil, don’t belittle either the performance or the hustle, but rather use the hype around “Cake” as a jumping-off point to discuss Aniston’s career and celebrity more broadly, alongside the ins and outs of how exactly buzz gets built in the first place.Starter episode: “Alexander (With David Sims)”‘The Town With Matthew Belloni’Though not a traditional awards season podcast with predictions or play-by-play recaps, “The Town” is an invaluable resource for anyone hoping to understand the upheaval in Hollywood. Delivered in snappy episodes that clock in around 30 minutes, Matthew Belloni, a former editor of The Hollywood Reporter and a founding partner of the digital media company Puck, shares insights and exclusive reporting on the industry, whether the issue is last year’s monthslong writers’ and actors’ strikes, Disney’s succession woes or the cost-of-streaming crisis. In a recent episode, Belloni and Brooks Barnes, a Hollywood correspondent for The New York Times, went deep on the current state of the “unkillable” Golden Globes, which returned last year after a hiatus sparked by controversy surrounding its now-defunct unorthodox voting body, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. Traditionally the first awards show on the calendar — and the most chaotic — the Globes have proved to have more staying power than many predicted, and this analysis is a good resource for anybody wondering why.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More